The Walt Disney Co. and Twitter April 30 announced a new agreement to create live content and advertising opportunities across the entire Disney portfolio on the Twitter platform. The pact includes more than 30 new collaborations and renewals across entertainment, news, sports, and gaming – nearly doubling the number of programs created in the first deal in 2017.

Twitter, which claims to have 328 million monthly users, is looking to expand original content to mobile users. The social media platform earlier this year inked a deal with Major League Baseball to live-stream a weekly afternoon game each week. Twitter also streams NFL Monday Night Football games.

Live content launching on Twitter from these entities under the new agreement will be announced at a later date.

“Through this new agreement, participants from across the company will have the opportunity to create experiences unique to Twitter that will extend their brands in meaningful ways,” Justin Connolly, EVP, affiliate sales and marketing, Disney and ESPN Media Networks, said in a statement.

Travis Howe, SVP, platform ad sales strategy and global operations at Disney-owned ESPN, said social media has become the new primary vehicle to grow and engage audiences. ESPN, which launched standalone over-the-top video platform, ESPN+, is unveiling content agreements with Twitter in May.

“The insights to be gained will be invaluable as we continue to serve the right content and the right ads to the right people,” Howe said.

“To innovate at this scale with The Walt Disney Co. is a huge step forward in expanding the depth and breadth of video content we offer to leaned in, engaged consumers on Twitter,” said Matthew Derella, global VP of revenue and content partnerships, at Twitter.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sat on Disney’s board from 2013 until early this year when he resigned along with Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg.

“The launch of ESPN+ marks an exciting moment for the OTT sports experience, giving consumers more sports content from their favorite pastimes than ever,” Scott Rosenberg, GM of platform business at Roku, said in a statement.

Appalled by the nation’s bitter political divide and the current occupant of the White House, Disney CEO Bob Iger considered running for president in the 2020 election.

The political aspiration, outlined in a Vogue profile, was cut short after Disney’s $52.4 billion acquisition of select 21st Century Fox assets, including 20th Century Fox, require Igor remain CEO through 2021.

Iger, who has repeatedly announced/cancelled retirement dates, actually thought about running in 2016, against the advice of his wife, Willow Bay. He has been Disney CEO since 2005.

“The thought I had was coming from the patriot in me, growing up at a time when we respected our politicians not only for what they stood for but because of what they accomplished,” Iger said.

Declaring himself to be “horrified at the state of politics in America today,” Iger contends there exists the opportunity for a presidential candidate who is more “open-minded” and willing to govern in a bi-partisan manner that would “shame everyone else into going to the middle.”

He reportedly has pushed Disney units Pixar, Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm to diversify lead characters, and was a big supporter in the production of box office hit Black Panther, which features a predominantly black cast and was filmed almost entirely in Atlanta.

When local law makers sought to pass “religious freedom” legislation that would have enabled businesses to discriminate against the LGBTQ community, Iger publicly warned Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal that such a move would see Disney relocate its production business out-of-state. The bill was scuttled.

“On the business side, there is a case to be made for your product reflecting the world you’re trying to do business in,” Iger said. “But of course, there’s also an ethical side.”

Notably, Iger’s business stances run both ways. He was one of the first high-profile CEOs to quit Trump’s business advisory panel after the president announced U.S. plans to exit the Paris climate accord.

In 2016, Iger came under fire from Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders – a longtime critic of economics favoring the nation’s top 1% — when he accused Disney of paying Disneyland employees unlivable wages, among other labor-saving actions, while reaping billions in quarterly profit.

Iger, whose compensation at Disney ranks among the highest in corporate America, lashed back in a Facebook post.

“To Bernie Sanders: We created 11,000 new jobs at Disneyland in the past decade, and our company has created 18,000 in the U.S. in the last five years. How many jobs have you created? What have you contributed to the U.S. economy?”

Notably, Disney shareholders last month – in a non-binding vote – rejected an executive compensation plan that would pay Iger upwards of $48.5 million annually over the next four years, in addition to a $100 million equity grant.

Disney’s board has not made a final ruling on Iger’s compensation package.

The Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, a U.K. regulatory board, April 12 ruled the Walt Disney Co. be forced to match Fox’s $14.4 billion cash offer for British pay-TV service Sky should its $52.4 billion acquisition of select 21st Century Fox assets succeed. Fox currently owns 39% of the satellite TV operator.

The panel mandated Disney pay 10.75 pounds ($15.22) per Sky share, which is equal to Fox’s bid in 2016 for outstanding Sky shares currently held up in regulatory limbo.

Disney, which initially said it wasn’t interested in acquiring the remaining stake in Sky, has agreed to the ruling, according to The Takeover Panel.

While the ruling affords Sky investors a guaranteed Sky buyer should Fox’s bid fail, the markets remain key on Comcast’s Feb. 27 stated desire to bid more than $31 billion for Sky – which represents a 16% premium on the Fox bid. Comcast is also mulling a potential rival offer to Disney for 21st Century Fox assets.

Fox, in a statement, said it remains committed to its cash offer for Sky, which is supported by revised remedies recently offered to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) with whom Fox has been co-operating in order to bring the U.K. regulatory process to a “swift and satisfactory” conclusion.

The kiosk vendor said it filed the countersuit following a Feb. 20 federal court ruling that both denied Disney a preliminary injunction against Redbox and found Disney committed copyright misuse on 20 of its most recent movies.

Disney alleges that the digital codes included in combo packs cannot be sold separately. It filed initial litigation against Redbox last November. Redbox is selling the codes at a significant discount to the retail cost of standalone digital purchases on third-party platforms.

“Disney wants to eliminate low-cost options like Redbox in order to force consumers to pay as much as possible for Disney’s content, even after Disney has already been fully compensated when it first sells that content to a distributor or retailer,” read the complaint.

Redbox said Disney has not only failed to correct its false advertising to consumers but has doubled down on its unlawful campaign against Redbox with the home video release of three recent titles: Coco, Thor: Ragnarok and Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

“Incredibly, Disney complains that consumers may believe these titles, as well as [upcoming] Black Panther, are somehow inferior to those of other studios simply because Redbox offers them at low prices,” read the complaint. “We look forward to advancing our case to an ultimate victory in court.”

Media giant 21st Century Fox April 3 floated the prospect The Walt Disney Co. could acquire Sky News in an independent deal to assuage British regulators in its $16 billion acquisition for the remaining 61% stake of the European satellite operator.

Disney’s acquisition of Sky’s news division would be separate from its $52 billion acquisition of 20th Century Fox Film Corp., which includes the corporate parent’s stake in Sky, according to The Wall Street Journal. Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch owns The Journal.

British regulator Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in January issued a report critical of the merger, claiming Murdoch’s majority ownership of Sky would place too much (i.e. conservative politics) control of British media in hands of one person.

Fox contends selling Sky News to Disney (which owns ABC TV) should alleviate regulatory concerns. It has also pledged 15 years of guaranteed funding for the news division.

“The enhanced remedies we proposed to safeguard the editorial independence of Sky News addressed comprehensively and constructively the [CMA’s] provisional concerns,” Fox said in a statement.

Regardless, Fox faces competition from Comcast, which has submitted an unsolicited $31 billion bid for Sky – nearly twice that of Murdoch’s offer.

Comcast, which owns NBC Universal and DreamWorks Animation, is eying Sky for its European distribution plans. Comcast in 2004 attempted a hostile takeover of Disney, which was scuttled by the latter’s shareholders. Comcast also reportedly offered a 15% premium on Disney’s bid for 20th Century Fox, which was rejected by Murdoch over U.S. regulatory concerns.

ESPN+, Disney’s much-anticipated first standalone over-the-top video service, is launching April 12, priced at $4.99 per month. ESPN+ will be an integrated part of a redesigned ESPN App, also available through ESPN.com.

“ESPN was built on a belief in innovation and the powerful connection between sports and a remarkable array of fans. That same belief is at the heart of ESPN+ and the new ESPN App,” James Pitaro, president and co-chair, Disney Media Networks, said in a statement.

The OTT platform is the first direct-to-consumer service offering from Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, the newly-created multimedia unit created by Disney’s Media Networks and Studio Entertainment groups.

A Disney-branded direct-to-consumer service, offering SVOD viewing of Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm movies along with a host of exclusive content, will launch in late 2019. Both streaming services are powered by BAMTech, a unit of Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International.

“The launch of ESPN+ marks the beginning of an exciting new era of innovation for our media businesses – one defined by an increasingly direct and personal relationship with consumers,” said Kevin Mayer, chairman, Direct-to-Consumer and International, The Walt Disney Co.

The ESPN+ programming lineup will offer four key pillars of content: live sports events, original shows and films, exclusive studio programs, and on-demand content. Additional details about content in the ESPN+ programming lineup will be announced in the coming days.